1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a job executing system and a job executing method, each of which is preferably applicable to a case where an input-related job and an output-related job are associated with each other, for example, when a document is input or output via a network.
2. Description of Related Art
In conventional art, when the user intends to perform a work by means of jobs related to input or output of a document, he activates software or the like having a function suitable for the work each time the job is performed.
For example, when the user intends to obtain a received electronic mail, he takes out a received electronic mail from the mail box using a mailer and causes the electronic mail to be displayed. When he intends to print the content of the body of the electronic mail thus obtained or the content of an attached file, he newly activates print processing.
In this example, each of the taking-out, displaying, and printing, of the electronic mail is a separate and independent job, so that, when each job is terminated, the job disappears completely. Therefore, before performing each job, he does not need to mind what the previous job was. Accordingly, he can interactively proceed with his desired processing by performing operations to instruct executions of subsequent jobs one by one.
However, when, with respect to one document, jobs, such as the taking-out, displaying, and printing, of an electronic mail, are performed as jobs which are unrelated to and independent of one another, it may happen that the information on what the preceding job (or, a further preceding job) was becomes unknown or disappears completely.
Such detailed historical information on previous jobs is useful, for example, for accurately forecasting a result of a job intended to be executed hereafter, performing detailed job management, and preventing unexpected malfunctions.
In many conventional file systems, a configuration is adopted in which information indicative of a type of a file, and information indicative of dates and times when the file is generated, altered, and referenced are stored as file management information in association with its file name. However, such a conventional configuration is problematic because what file management information is stored depends on the file system and because the file management information is not necessarily sufficient.